ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 offers as an example of method a discussion of a traditional holistic worldview in conversation with theology. The discussion takes part across the boundaries of Vedic religion and Christianity, with G. C. Pande and Gordon Kaufman as the primary discussants germane to the example of method. The Vedic worldview — with its extension into the later Hindu tradition — is examined in terms of the triangular religious model. The elements of the triangular model include the religious ideal, humanity and world. The chapter asks, How are these elements conceived in the Veda, independently and as a unitive scheme? We may anticipate some directions the chapter will take:
The religious ideal of the Vedic world is deity conceived under a henotheistic scheme. A definition of henotheism is offered and some defense of henotheism is given in the systematic and comparative terms of contemporary theology.
The world is defined in the Veda as the locus for the activity of the sacrifice and the raw material of the sacrifice. Interestingly, the world as creation is also the result of the sacrificial act. In RV X.90, the “Hymn to Puruṣa” or Puruṣasūkta, Puruṣa is the cosmic person. In an archetype of panentheistic thinking, it is said that one-quarter of Puruṣa is the world and three-quarters is beyond the world. Puruṣa is the locus of the sacrifice and the oblation or material offered in the sacrifice. The sacrifice of Puruṣa creates the world, but does not exhaust Puruṣa. Vedic sacrifice, therefore, is the organizing feature for concepts of deity, world and humanity.
Humanity in the Vedic conception is thought of much as today in terms of the necessity to act for satisfaction of basic human needs. Important differences obtain between the Vedic conception of humanity and the modern, of course. The model human activity in the Veda is the sacrificial act. In terms of the triangular worldview, sacrifice may be defined as communion between humanity and deity in the world context. We shall need to compare the sacrifice and the role of the sacrifice across the boundaries of time and space. When we investigate the value of sacrifice for systematic theology today, we find that the Vedic worldview evinces an attractive realism.
